At the trial he did not attempt to prove that any part of Lough Neagh was injured. Still, as the traps must have hurt all the upper waters, the jury decided that, if they were ultimately held to be unlawful, the damages should be £45. This finding was elaborated into a “special verdict” drawn up between the opposing counsel, which set out their version of each litigant’s title. The question of the legal right to erect the traps was left over for argument in the Appellate Court in Dublin. The only point to be decided was: Whether as a possible hindrance to fish ascending to Lough Neagh the traps could be maintained. The Londoners’ counsel at this stage was the Attorney-General (John Fitzgibbon), who allowed the “special verdict” to be so framed that their Charter and Lord Donegall’s Patent were mutually accepted as unimpeachable. Soon afterwards Fitzgibbon became Lord Chancellor and Earl of Clare. When the appeal came on he presided at the hearing in 1789, and struggled hard to prevent the traps being condemned. The majority of the judges, however, decided that they were illegal, and the Londoners after some time raised a further appeal by means of a Writ of Error to the Irish House of Lords in 1795. There again the Chancellor figured as the leading member of the Court and strove to help his old clients. The Dublin Parliament in 1782 had declared its independence of English jurisdiction, and the air of its Court in College Green was charged with Irish spirit. When the Writ of Error had been argued for a day, one of the legal peers, Lord Pery, showed his mettle by suggesting that the Londoners’ Charter was defective for lack of the Irish Great Seal. This was a deadly thrust; but he then aimed a home blow at their opponent. He suggested that, although Charles II. made the grant to Lord Donegall earlier than the Charter, the Londoners retained priority under their original Charter from James I., because the annulment of the latter took place under an English decree of Charles I., which did not extend to Ireland. Therefore, he contended, they still possessed their ancient rights intact. These objections raised the slumbering wraith of international conflict with Great Britain at an embarrassing moment. They bristled with delicate political problems, and the Lord Chancellor cleverly foiled them. Dealing first with the Donegall Patent, he narrated that he had acted as counsel for the Londoners at the trial at Armagh in 1788, and had gone there “for the very purpose of showing that Lord Donegall had no title—but a clause in the Act of Settlement put that out of the case.” Turning to the Charter, he declared that the Londoners held by possession for over a century; and, although the Great Seal of Ireland might originally have been necessary to it, a good possessory title had been acquired by the lapse of years. These statements appeared conclusive.